4 ms·

"We’re a small company, and our IT department consists of one individual. He often works on high pressure, involved projects that affect the entire company. How

"We’re a small company, and our IT department consists of one individual. He often works on high pressure, involved projects that affect the entire company. However, there’s no one on call for day-to-day issues like common printer problems or computer freeze-ups. He usually works with his door closed or is frequently off site, so contacting him is not always easy or direct. " and "He is also curt and dismissive, especially with junior staff—mostly part-timers, moms with kids—who don’t have a lot of experience troubleshooting computer problems." This is HN, so I may be stating the obvious - but if IT is under-staffed, this guy has work that needs his direct, uninterrupted attention - and people wonder why he might be a jerk or dismissive ? People tend to forget or not know how IT works. If your a manager, you might have x employees reporting to you. So you are directly responsible for those employees and whoever you report to. Sales? Same - you need to report to your boss and the customer. Customer Service? The customer and your boss. But IT generally needs to report to the entire division or company. One of my last jobs, there were 2 of us in IT and the company was 500 employees. And we had our own uninterrupted work we needed to get done. And we did help desk, were off site, etc... And we had to account for any 1 of the 500 employees at any given moment needing support or a server going down or code to be written or a security camera going out, or pulling a backup cause someone clicked "delete" by accident, or etc... I'm not saying it's acceptable to be a jerk or whatever term people what to use. I'm saying, while (random employee) might be responsible for say 10 people, IT is generally responsible for entire organizations. Slack, is to be cut, sometimes.

exolymph 10y ago
The response from Ask a Manager seems to be in agreement with you: > Your company is relying on the same person to do high-concentration projects and to provide help desk support — when those are two very different roles with conflicting needs.
jerf 10y ago
"but if IT is under-staffed, this guy has work that needs his direct, uninterrupted attention - and people wonder why he might be a jerk or dismissive ?" From where we are and the evidence given in the post, we can't distinguish between "legitimately a jerk" and "overstressed by interruptions and lacking the emotional bandwidth to deal with people". And, you know, there's even the possibility that he's dealing with the IT requests completely professionally, and that's being interpreted as being a jerk, because IT interactions seem to be somehow particularly prone to that sort of thing. (Probably the problems of getting an engineering, technically-focused person dealing with more people with very different social interaction protocols.)
- pc86 10y ago
  If he lacks the emotional bandwidth to deal with people, I'd say he hasn't earned that "IT professional" title he wants people to use.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
basch 10y ago
sometimes the eye roll isnt directed at the person asking the question, but instead more of a "ive answered this question 10 times this week, if i could pull everyones attention for 5 minutes, no one would ever need to ask it again." but instead employees refuse to read all-employees emails from IT, and upper management does not choose to schedule time for all hands training/meetings. in this scenario the eye roll is directed towards management for not fixing the training issue at a higher level in the company. a once a month hour long training session might fix hundreds of hours of helpdesk backlog. but that would cost money because people wouldnt be working. or maybe the eye roll is directed at the employee who deleted the bulk-email solution, unread, that was sent out hours,days,weeks,months before they asked the question.

exolymph 10y ago

The response from Ask a Manager seems to be in agreement with you: > Your company is relying on the same person to do high-concentration projects and to provide help desk support — when those are two very different roles with conflicting needs.

jerf 10y ago

"but if IT is under-staffed, this guy has work that needs his direct, uninterrupted attention - and people wonder why he might be a jerk or dismissive ?" From where we are and the evidence given in the post, we can't distinguish between "legitimately a jerk" and "overstressed by interruptions and lacking the emotional bandwidth to deal with people". And, you know, there's even the possibility that he's dealing with the IT requests completely professionally, and that's being interpreted as being a jerk, because IT interactions seem to be somehow particularly prone to that sort of thing. (Probably the problems of getting an engineering, technically-focused person dealing with more people with very different social interaction protocols.)

pc86 10y ago
If he lacks the emotional bandwidth to deal with people, I'd say he hasn't earned that "IT professional" title he wants people to use.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

basch 10y ago

sometimes the eye roll isnt directed at the person asking the question, but instead more of a "ive answered this question 10 times this week, if i could pull everyones attention for 5 minutes, no one would ever need to ask it again." but instead employees refuse to read all-employees emails from IT, and upper management does not choose to schedule time for all hands training/meetings. in this scenario the eye roll is directed towards management for not fixing the training issue at a higher level in the company. a once a month hour long training session might fix hundreds of hours of helpdesk backlog. but that would cost money because people wouldnt be working. or maybe the eye roll is directed at the employee who deleted the bulk-email solution, unread, that was sent out hours,days,weeks,months before they asked the question.